How Death Becomes Her Gave Writing Duo Julia Mattison and Noel Carey Permission to Be Ridiculous

Giggling together in the back row of musical theater classrooms at Emerson College, Julia Mattison and Noel Carey discovered a profound and urgently shared desire.

“Both of us,” Carey recalled, “just needed to be ridiculous.”

Thirteen years later, very little has changed. As Mattison and Carey put the final touches on their Broadway composing debut with Death Becomes Her, a musical adaptation of the darkly comic cult film, the writing duo’s creative holy grail remains a gleeful and demented silliness—which, in this case, is exactly what the material calls for.

In Robert Zemeckis’ 1992 horror-infused satire, feuding frenemies Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) battle for the affections of famed plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis). Madeline is a vain, washed-up actress; Helen a bitter and frustrated novelist. Driven to desperate ends by a patriarchal, beauty-obsessed world, both women take an elixir of youth to stay beautiful forever—with unexpected consequences.

Zemeckis’ film is most famous for its gross-out effects, which include Streep’s head twisting backwards and a hole blown cleanly through Hawn’s stomach. For Mattison and Carey, it was an obvious match from the moment they first heard that Universal Theatrical Group was looking to adapt the property for the stage. “As soon as I rewatched the movie I was like, ‘Oh, this is perfect,’” said Carey. “Spooky, murder, camp, wonderful.”

The duo sat down with Broadway.com in the grand mezzanine lobby of the gorgeous Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where Death Becomes Her opens on Broadway November 21, led by Tony-nominated Broadway divas Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard and directed by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli (Newsies).

The pair’s first (unofficial) collaboration at college was a fake historical tour dubbed The ‘That Guy’ Tour of Boston. A project for history class, the tour provided fictional information about unimportant figures from the city’s history, including a man facing the wrong way in an image from the Boston Tea Party. “We just made up pure nonsense, and got an A,” said Mattison. “So then we realized: ‘OK, creativity might take us far here.’”

Both Mattison and Carey are performers themselves. Mattison made her Broadway debut in Godspell at the age of 23 while Carey has toured across the country with the musical whodunit Murder For Two. In New York, a wide variety of projects followed: concerts at 54 Below and Joe’s Pub, the mockumentary web series Brooklyn Sound and an Audible musical about the end of the world, aptly titled, Is Anyone Alive Out There? They also regularly performed Ruby Manger Live! The Farewell Concert, a deranged journey through the career highlights of fictional “Broadway legend” Ruby Manger. Mattison played Manger; Carey accompanied as Ruby’s longtime best friend Randy Newman.

“It was just whatever outlet would let us be ridiculous together,” said Mattison. They even wrote a Broadway-style jingle for an Olay facial cleanser titled “I Can’t Wait to Wash My Face,” an assignment that turned out to be an unexpected tee-up for Death Becomes Her. “We read the script, and the first line was ‘Dull, glowless skin,’” said Carey. “We just dabbled in that!” laughed Mattison.

Broadway seemed a far-flung fantasy. But after a successful first meeting, Mattison and Carey submitted on spec with two songs, “‘Til Death” and “Falling Apart” (both are still in the show, albeit in highly altered forms). Marco Pennette, who was already attached as book writer, remembers the search for a music team well. “The producers had some formidable teams competing for the job,” he said. But “Falling Apart,” Madeline’s pitiful plea for perpetual fame and youth, quickly sealed the deal for him. “When I read the lyric, 'All I wanted was a simple life/Someone to hold at night/While my husband sleeps downstairs,' I remember texting the producer saying, ‘We have a winner!’”

“There was every reason for them to pursue fancy, award-decorated people,” said Mattison. “We feel so lucky that they based it on what’s the right fit more than any title or descriptor.”

The three did the bulk of their writing over Zoom during the pandemic shutdown. That proved a “twisted gift,” as Carey put it, providing the time and freedom to “play to the full spectrum of our imaginations.” The key challenge was hitting all the familiar beats the movie’s fans would demand while also fleshing out Madeline and Helen’s relationship. “We wanted to just know them more,” said Mattison. “To get in there and color the ‘whys.’” For Madeline, that meant eliciting some audience sympathy without losing the character’s wonderful awfulness.

The film begins with Madeline performing the wretched opening number of a Broadway musical titled Songbird as the audience files out. Mattison and Carey toyed with multiple variations that might give Madeline still further to fall. There was a song called “Awooga” that required the ensemble to wear huge-eyeball glasses. Another idea involved Madeline performing the “In Memoriam” segment at the Oscars and riffing on dead people’s names to keep them from upstaging her. The team ultimately landed on “For the Gaze,” a pun-tastic, over-the-top delight, which involves Hilty doing a Liza Minnelli impression. Meanwhile, a solo number for Helen, “That Was Then, This Is Now,” gives a greater sense of her happiness with Ernest before Madeline swoops in. Later, we also see Madeline’s sexist mistreatment by an infomercial director, lending context to her own growing desperation.

“We really didn’t just want to go, ‘These two women are crazy,’” said Carey. “Helen gets her love taken away from her, and we also see Madeline at really panicked and vulnerable moments. These were opportunities for us to just have the audience connect a little more.” If that sounds at all message-y, fear not. This is also a show where Helen waves Madeline off an open cavity in her chest by yelling, “Stop fingering my hole!”

Madeline and Helen’s numbers have an “old-Broadway” sound, filled with energetic, quick-tempo musical comedy stylings. Mattison and Carey drew inspiration from The Producers and, perhaps more surprisingly, from Golden-Age Disney animation. “The old Looney Tunes cartoons were scored to, like, 50-piece orchestras,” said Carey. “These are unhinged characters that want to kill each other and can’t die. We’re doing the same thing here—stupid and elegant.” Meanwhile, for Viola Van Horn, the magical temptress offering a potion of eternal youth, the two sought a totally distinct sound. Influenced by Shirley Bassey’s powerful James Bond theme songs, Viola’s numbers are sultry and threatening. When famed Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Wiliams joined the show, Mattison and Carey added a few thrilling riffs that played to Williams’ impressive belt.

“We had a deeper, brassier thing for [Viola] earlier on, but Michelle also has this upper register magic,” said Carey. “Getting to write more for Michelle’s voice since she came on board has made the music better.” The same was true for Hilty and Simard, who brought their own flavor to Madeline and Helen alongside their enthusiasm for Mattison and Carey’s compositions. “In every way, they just elevate the material,” said Mattison. “It’s a magical thing to have such incredible performers carry our work beyond what we’ve done.”

Ultimately, the duo feel exceedingly lucky not just to have made it to Broadway, but to arrive with a project so perfectly aligned with their own lunatic sense of humor. “The chance to bring our really silly, stupid comedy to Broadway and dress it up with an 18-piece orchestra felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Carey. “Not just for us, but also to have a big musical comedy on Broadway again. They don’t come along all that often.”